


and to complicate the matter even though it brought me joy

by orphan_account



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Crack, Humor, Olivia Benson is her own son's great-grandmother is all you really need to know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 20:14:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18709195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In 2050, Olivia Benson sits in a wicker chair behind the 16th precinct, regaling new SVU detectives with the story of why she abruptly retired and now spends her days repeatedly askingWhat?to nothing in particular.This is the story of how Benson discovers that her son is actually her biological great-grandson. Crack, crack, crack all the way. *This story came from a place of great joy and silly humor.*





	and to complicate the matter even though it brought me joy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adrianna_m_scovill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adrianna_m_scovill/gifts).



> So, the relationship here is technically Barba/Carisi but I didn't tag it that way because there's so much excellent Barisi fic that this one absolutely DOES NOT under any circumstances belong in that tag.

**16th Precinct  
** Midtown Manhattan  
January 2050 

There’s an urban legend of sorts at the 16th Precinct in Manhattan about the lieutenant who, thirty years ago, made the Special Victims Unit into what it is today. The detectives say that the commanding officer has a secret door that leads to a small garden out back, where Olivia Benson, now in her mid-eighties, sits in a floral-cushioned wicker chair, regardless of the weather, and repeats the interjection What? over and over and over again. If you sit beside her, however, she’ll tell you her tale from start to finish, the tale of a thirty-year-long storied career that ended in a series of revelations that would confuse just about anybody into repeating _What?_ over and over and over ad infinitum until the end of time.

When Detective Andrea Acosta accepted a promotion and transfer into SVU, she never expected to discover that the rumors about the unit’s patron saint were true.

“We try to keep this quiet,” Acosta’s commanding officer told her. “No one in NYPD would believe us if we told them that she’s still here.”

He pushed on the wall behind his desk until a secret door opened. Acosta had seen panic rooms in Upper East Side townhouses before, but never a secret door hidden in a wall; she’d thought that only happened in lazily-thought-out television plots. 

The eighty-something Olivia Benson was dressed in black trousers and leather boots with a low heel, a puffy coat zipped to her neck and a warm wool hat pulled down over her forehead, almost as if she was protecting her forehead from something.

“What?” Benson said, to no one in particular.

Benson looked down at an old smartphone, the large flat ones that Acosta had seen in old photos on her parents’ social media pages. “What?” the former lieutenant shouted at the phone screen.

“Lieutenant Benson,” the commanding officer said, “this is our new detective, Andrea Acosta.”

“Welcome,” Benson said, flashing a broad smile at the detective, though that smile soon disintegrated back into confusion. “What?” she asked again.

“Why does she keep saying _what?_ ”

“Leave us alone for a few minutes,” Benson told the commanding officer, holding her head up high, but not moving from her chair. “She needs to hear this story.”

**Office of ADA Rafael Barba  
July 2017**

“I have to file charges,” Benson said, marching into Barba’s office with a folder tucked under her arm.

Barba stood up from behind his desk. “You know, you can call and make an appointment with Carmen first like everyone else does.”

“Excuse me?”

“All right, fine, first of all, you don’t file charges, I do, and second, what is going on?”

Benson shut the door behind her and dropped the folder on Barba’s desk. “Rollins and Carisi have been investigating a sperm bank that presents prospective mothers with fake profiles of donors.”

“That’s fraud, not a sex crime.” 

“Hear me out.”

“You know I always do,” he said, shaking his head in exasperation.

“Apparently, the sperm bank’s been doing this for twenty years. They’ve defrauded a lot of parents, OBs, and fertility specialists. That means there are a whole lot of children, and some legal adults, who don’t have accurate family medical histories for themselves.”

Barba flipped open the folder and paged through some of what was inside. “This is all civil,” he insisted. 

“Some of the actual donors were teenagers. These profiles they gave the prospective parents — 30-year-old Ivy League graduates with no family history of health problems — weren’t the type who generally donated, so they recruited teenagers who needed money. That’s —”

“Possibly a medical “procedure” on a minor, if we can call it that, without parental consent. I might be able to file charges with regard to some of the more recent incidents, if we have DNA proof all around. Still not sure there’s a sex crime here, though, unless I’m trying to set a new precedent.”

“Isn’t that what you do?” Benson asked.

“That’s what you try to make me do,” Barba said, smirking in Benson’s direction. “That’s why I work 80-hour weeks.”

“Come on, they were paying 15-, 16-year-old kids for their sperm. That’s got to be a sex crime.”

“Let me go through Westlaw and see what I can do.” He continued flipping through the contents of the folder, stopping abruptly when he reached one particular page. “Wait,” he said, his eyes nearly bugging out of his head.

“What?”

“I know this place.”

“You’ve prosecuted them before.”

“No.” He licked his lip and wrinkled his forehead. “I’ve, uh, donated there before.”

“When?” Benson asked.

“I was sixteen.”

“You were —”

“Sit down.” He signaled toward the couch, where they both sat together. “I have to tell you something.”

"You could have more than one kid out there with your DNA."

“I don’t know. These guys were obviously shady. I honestly don’t know what they did with my donations.”

“Donations? How many —”

“Maybe ten times.”

“They’re not supposed to let someone donate ten times, that was one of the problems Rollins and Carisi found. Rollins said something about how you don’t want to have too many siblings out there who don’t know that they’re siblings.”

“Right, so it’s a medical ethics issue, not necessarily a legal one. Whatever medical professional are involved should lose their licenses, and everything else needs to happen in civil court. But, Liv, there’s something you should know about me. I’m eight years younger than I tell people I am.”

“What?”

“I was a sort of child prodigy. I got a full scholarship to Harvard when I was thirteen, started law school at sixteen. When I was hired by this office, I didn’t want them to know how old — or rather, how young — I actually was. I’d gotten a free ride through undergrad, but then I was accepted to Harvard Law on a 75 percent scholarship and my mother couldn’t afford to pay for the rest, so I worked two jobs, took out a few loans, and I got $100 a pop for the — you know — which was how I made extra spending money when I was visiting home. They liked that I was an actual child prodigy, except for the “child” part.”

Benson took a deep breath. “You’re only 39 years old?”

“That’s the most shocking part of the story to you? I’m almost 40.”

“You need to talk to Rollins and Carisi. The families who came to them are setting up a database so all of these children, who range from 3 months to 20 years old, can get more information about what their actual family histories are. Would you be willing to give your DNA? It would stay private, and it would be just for the benefit of the families.”

“Sure,” Barba said, “I can’t see how that could possibly be a problem.”

**Randolph Dworkin’s Office  
February 5th, 2018**

Dworkin was ready to punch a wall. “We’re going to sue the hell out of the feds and the state police,” he told Barba as he paced his tiny office.

“I thought you said they couldn’t compel my DNA,” Barba said. “So how did they get it?”

“From a private database created last summer. That’s why we’re suing the hell out of them the second you’re found not guilty.”

“That was supposed to be for the families from the —”

“From the sperm bank, I know. Everybody involved in the case knows now, since the state police horrendously violated your privacy, which is why we’re —”

“Suing the hell out of them. I got you.”

State and federal agents had been investigating an “Angel of Mercy” type who’d been going around hospitals all over New York, befriending the families and caretakers of people on life support, and then, against the will of those families and caretakers, pulling the plug on patients. Even though many of the family members and friends had spent hours talking to the guy, there was no consistent description, leading investigators to believe that he may have disguised himself each time. When Barba was arrested for flipping the switch on Baby Householder, the state and feds immediately looked to him as a suspect. 

“I mean, the good news is, the DNA ruled you out,” Dworkin assured him. 

“The bad news,” Barba sneered, “is that it was in a private database and I’m still on trial for murder.”

**Lieutenant Olivia Benson’s Office  
March 23rd, 2018**

On a Friday afternoon, Benson and Carisi were taking turns throwing darts at a picture of Barba’s face that Benson had taped to a dartboard mounted on the rear wall of her office, which had become a ritual of sorts for them. 

“Did he kiss you goodbye on the forehead too?” Benson asked through gritted teeth.

Carisi grunted and threw a dart that _whooshed_ perfectly into Barba’s cornea. “No,” he said, “he kissed me goodbye, uh, elsewhere.” A second dart hit Barba’s nostril. “Idiot thought we were just having a fling. Said I was better off without somebody who’d flipped the switch on a baby, somebody who’d been tried for murder. Fucking left me high and dry.”

Benson clapped when a third dart hit photo-Barba’s forehead.

Their fun was interrupted by a knock on the door. 

Benson removed the photograph of Barba from the dartboard and opened the door for Dr. Melinda Warner. “Olivia,” she said, “you and I need to talk.”

“I got you, doc,” Carisi said, sneering at Barba’s picture and leaving the office.

Warner spotted the picture and smirked uncomfortably. “I know Barba hurt you, but you may want to consider getting in touch with him,” she said.

“Why?” Benson demanded.

Warner sat in one of the chairs opposite Benson’s desk. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Go on,” Benson said, settling into her own chair.

“When you were around 16, did you place a baby for adoption?”

Benson’s eyes widened in alarm. “Yes. It was a fully closed adoption, though. Back then, they destroyed records after ten years. No one should be —”

“So, um, Rafael Barba’s DNA was run through CODIS because he was a suspect in a crime.”

“I know. They couldn’t compel his DNA so they went through a private database.”

“Just hear me out,” Warner said. “I don’t know how to say this, but a match came up in CODIS for Barba and Simon Marsden.”

“My brother?”

“They share enough DNA that it’s likely that they are — um —”

She’d never seen Warner, an Air Force veteran who’d encountered a lot of increasingly bizarre deaths in the medical examiner’s office during the last twenty years, so flustered.

“I think you and Barba need to get tested to confirm that you are mother and son.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I know,” Warner said, clenching her jaw, “I had the same reaction.”

“Barba’s not adopted. I met his mother.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s not adopted.”

“But he’s — oh my God —”

Warner jumped up and stood next to Benson. “Your pupils just went crazy there,” she said, “and I don’t want you to hit the floor if you pass out.”

“When I was 16, what led to the whole — event — was that I was engaged to my mother’s 25-year-old graduate student, which didn’t work out for obvious reasons. He was a Cuban American guy with dark hair and bright green eyes. But that —”

“Can’t possibly be a coincidence,” Warner said, “given the similarity between Barba’s DNA and your brother’s.”

“I’m Barba’s mother?”

Benson went home that night and poured herself a large glass of wine, sat on the couch, stared at her darkened television screen, and wondered how she could possibly tell her onetime best friend, who’d taken off after a hasty but pseudo-profound goodbye, that she was his mother.

**Forlini’s Restaurant, Lower Manhattan  
March 24th, 2018**

Carisi walked into Forlini’s at 9 o’clock on Saturday night. He and Fin had returned to the squadroom just an hour before after working a 12-hour weekend shift to locate a missing child, who’d thankfully been found. He was surprised to see Barba at the bar, on what must have been his third of fourth whiskey of the evening, given how he grasped the glass with two hands and swayed back and forth on the barstool.

“Sonny,” Barba said, his breaths becoming rapid, “I love you.”

“Take it easy there, Raf. You’re drunk.”

“No, I’m not, I just love you.”

“Uh-huh, and that’s why you left me high and dry and said what he had was just a fling. That’s why I haven’t seen or heard from you in almost eight weeks.”

“I’m sooooooooorrrry,” Barba said, stretching out the word.

“Hey,” Carisi said, snapping his fingers in the bartender’s direction, “how many has this guy had?”

“He’s on his fourth, I think.”

Carisi threw a ten-dollar bill down on the bar. “Cut him off, please, and get him a bottle of water.”

“What’re you, my _mom_?” Barba demanded. He covered his eyes with one hand. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m drunk, I’m stupidly drink, and my best friend’s son is my grandson.”

“What?” Carisi said, wondering if that was what Warner had come in to talk to Benson about the previous day. 

Barba stammered out an explanation that made little sense to Carisi, so Carisi — very kindly, for a man he’d been throwing darts at in effigy all month — rode home with Barba in a cab, got him up to his apartment, which he’d never sold or even left despite his dramatic goodbyes, and handed him a glass of water. 

“If you’re here for makeup sex, I’ve had way too much whiskey for any body parts to do what they’re supposed to,” Barba said, swallowing a gulp of water.

“I agree, and I’m here because I’m worried about you. Can I sleep on your couch?”

“You don’t need to babysit me.”

“I want to hear the whole story about how Noah is your grandson, if that’s not just a whiskey-inspired tale on your part.”

“Yeah. All right. Sleep on my couch. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

Barba sauntered towards his bedroom. “I can’t believe you dumped me, left your best friend in the dust, out of nowhere —” Carisi started to say. 

“It wasn’t out of nowhere,” Barba snapped. “You know why I had to do what I did.”

“No, actually, I don’t, but go to bed.”

“Neither of you wanted me around after I flipped that switch. Don’t kid yourselves.”

At two in the morning, Carisi woke up to find Barba standing over him. “What the hell?” Carisi mumbled.

“Had a headache. Took ibuprofen. You want to come to bed?”

“Whiskey’s bad for your memory. You broke up with me weeks ago.”

“I was wrong. I should have considered that maybe you’d want to talk this out, that maybe it wasn’t a fling, but the beginning of something more. Come to bed.”

Carisi rubbed his eyes. “What Warner told you must have been pretty bad.”

“Warner didn’t tell me anything.”

“She came to Liv’s office Friday, looked real worried.”

“Come to bed,” Barba said again.

“Okay. This doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at you.”

“You have every right to be,” Barba said. Carisi followed him back to his bedroom and settled in to the left side of the bed, a place that had been familiar to him in the six months before Barba had uncharacteristically flipped that godforsaken switch.

“So Noah is your grandson,” Carisi said. “How is that possible?”

“Sheila Porter’s husband was infertile. They went to a sperm bank in New York to conceive a child, and that child was Ellie, Noah’s biological mother. I donated sperm there for money ten times when I was —”

“Oh my God,” Carisi said, drawing in a sharp breath. “Was it at the place Rollins and I investigated last summer?”

“The one and only.”

“Too bad you weren't one of the underage donors. Would have been past the statute of limitations anyway, but --”

“Nope,” Barba interrupted. “I was 16.”

“You were not. You’d have been like, 23, right? 23 or 24.”

“Sonny. Listen to me. I’m actually 39 years old.”

“You are _not_.” 

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Come here,” Carisi said, caressing Barba’s face and then gently kissing his lips, “you are _not_ 39 years old.”

“I’m almost 40. I lied because the DA’s office wasn’t going to hire the Doogie Howser of lawyers, and I always looked a lot older than I was.”

“You’re saying we’re, like, almost the exact same age?”

“You’re not more concerned about the fact that I’m Liv’s son’s grandfather?”

“I mean —” Carisi pressed his forehead to Barba’s and started to laugh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, this isn’t funny, and I assume this is what Warner told Liv because there’s a match in CODIS to Ellie, and _this isn’t funny_ but, you’re a grandfather, Raf. You’re Noah Porter Benson’s grandfather.”

**Olivia Benson’s apartment  
March 25th, 2018**

Benson and Barba sat opposite each other at Benson’s dining table. He clutched a tumbler of whiskey with trembling hands; she held a stemmed glass wine. 

“So,” Benson said, “I assume we both have the same piece of information.”

“Carisi said Warner came to see you on Friday. Did she get the match with Ellie Porter through CODIS?”

“Warner told me that — wait, what? — Ellie Porter?”

“Yes, her DNA must have been in there, not that it should have ever been, but, yes, it’s true, she’s my biological daughter.”

“What?”

Barba swallowed more whiskey. “Then we … do not … have the same piece of information.”

“Ellie Porter is your biological _daughter_?”

“Through the sperm bank. I thought that’s what this was about. Do you know something else?”

Benson stared off to the side like she was trying to divide 232 by 13 in her head. 

“Liv, what else could Warner have possibly told you?”

She drank the rest of her wine and tried to breathe through her nose and out through her mouth, but appeared to be breathing out through her ears instead. “When I was 16,” she told Barba, “I placed a baby boy for adoption.”

Barba’s face fell.

“If you’re thinking the most outlandish thing possible, then you’re absolutely right.”

“My parents adopted me from — Liv, are you my — no.”

“Biologically, I am your mother.”

Barba drank more whiskey. “No,” he said, “that’s impossible.”

“I’d have thought so too, until I found out you’re almost eight years younger than you say you are. But, wait, you’re Ellie Porter’s biological father?”

Barba headed for the kitchen to retrieve the whiskey bottle, wondering for a split second if it might be healthier for him to just take up smoking again. “You’re Ellie’s biological father,” Benson repeated, “which makes Noah your —”

“Grandson.”

“And I’m your mother, so that makes me —”

“Dear God,” Barba said, his eyes bugging out of his head as he brought both the whiskey and wine bottles to the table.

“I’m my son’s great-grandmother?”

**16th Precinct  
** Midtown Manhattan  
January 2050 

“I put in for retirement that very afternoon,” Benson said, “and Amanda Rollins set me up back here, and I do go home every night, to my son and my-other-son-his-grandfather. We live in a house together, all of us, Noah and his wife and Rafael and his husband. Rafael and Sonny never had any kids because the family tree would have become too confusing, regardless of whether they adopted or used a surrogate. Sonny is Noah’s brother-in-law and step-grandfather. Noah’s wife Kate is my daughter-in-law and my great-granddaughter-in-law. She’s pregnant. Their son is going to be both my grandson and my great-great-grandson.”

“I’m so sorry, Lieutenant Benson,” Acosta said sympathetically. 

“You should probably get back to work. But remember, we keep quiet about this around here.”

“I understand.”

Acosta left Benson alone in the makeshift garden behind the 16th precinct to continue to whisper _What?_ into the wind.

**Lieutenant Olivia Benson’s Office  
October 2017**

“Liv!”

Olivia Benson blinked a few hundred times and took a few minutes to recognize that she was on the couch in her office, next to Barba. His hand was on her shoulder, shaking gently. 

“I’m sorry, Rafa, I must have dozed off.”

“You’ve had a long couple of weeks. You’re forgiven. I wanted to tell you that if you really want Sheila to be a part of Noah’s life, that’s your choice.”

She rubbed her eyes. “You know what?” she said. “I’m going to ask my attorney’s advice and proceed very, very cautiously with Sheila.”

“You said you wanted Noah to have a family.”

“Not that much.” 

“What do you mean?”

Benson breathed out through pursed lips. “Hey, Rafa, how old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” he joked, and she lightly punched his arm. “What, are you going to say I’m robbing the cradle by being with a thirty-eight year old adult man, too?”

“No, no, of course not,” she said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “You should disclose that soon, though.”

“We will,” he promised.

“But seriously. I had a … nightmare … just now. How old are you?”

“Forty-eight in a few days.”

“Thank goodness,” Benson said, reminding herself that Noah already had all the family he needed.

**Author's Note:**

> * title comes from the classic American novelty song "I'm My Own Grandpa"
> 
> * Barba as Noah's biological grandfather was originally adrianna_m_scovill's idea. I mixed in the idea of Benson being Barba's mom and baked a really weird cake.
> 
> * I usually write Barson but could not make this a Barson fic FOR OBVIOUS REASONS.
> 
> * I will never write crack-treated-seriously as well as adrianna_m_scovill. This court is adjourned.


End file.
